


Tropes

by Quakey (Quak3y)



Category: Cable and Deadpool
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I prefer violence to fluff and it probably shows, I'm amazed I wrote something without an Explicit rating, M/M, The boys accidentally wanted to talk about their feelings and I just wrote it for them, but fluff is nice too, meta as fuck, what even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 07:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quak3y/pseuds/Quakey
Summary: Deadpool has* been readingwaytoo much on the site TV Tropes.  He gets meta with Cable, who gets confused and then does something about it.*The author has





	Tropes

**Author's Note:**

> There is no continuity here, because #@&* comics and continuity anyway. Pretend they’re still on Providence and not divorced. And since Deadpool is who he is, he just knows all the before and after out of continuity and has access to through-the-fourth-wall TV Tropes.

“Nate! Nate, come here! I figured something out!”

A sigh, then Cable sets down the tablet with the mission brief he was reading, stands, and comes to stand behind a suited up minus his mask Deadpool.

“What is it?”

“TV Tropes! But they apply to more than TV, which is good because we aren’t on TV. Yet!

“Anyway, I was looking around and I found you!”

Cable’s eyebrows lift a little in confusion. “Me?”

“Yes, look!” Deadpool’s finger stabs enthusiastically toward the screen. “See? ‘Magnificent Bastard,’ this is so you! ‘Brilliant. Utterly devious. They always seem to know what everyone else is planning at any given moment and makes them play right into their hands. They always have a backup strategy. They have a goal, and they're not going to stop until they've completed it. They are charismatic, savvy, detest usurpers of their power, are audacious beyond belief, and are definitely not dirty cowards.

“‘While usually an antagonist, the Magnificent Bastard can be aligned on either side of a conflict. Hell, they're so amazing they tend to forgo the idea of good and evil altogether, instead following their own agenda, choosing to help whichever side will further their goals. However, it's true that their penchant for manipulation at the expense of others means it's common for them to be a Villain, Villain Protagonist, or at least an Anti-Hero, but purely heroic examples exist.’”

Deadpool spins around on the spinny office chair to look expectantly up at Cable.

“Wade, I …” Cable stalls out in confusion. Tries again. “Why? Are you trying to embarrass me? Insult me? Compliment me?” His eyes are drawn back to _brilliant_ and _penchant for manipulation at the expense of others_ , and he adds quietly, “Do you really see me that way?”

Deadpool shrugs. “Well, you are magnificent. And a bastard. Of the behavior variety, not the parentally-caused variety. They don't actually list you as an example of Magnificent Bastard, but the list isn't exhaustive, and they're just stupid if they don't think the whole Providence arc doesn't fit the description, all the way up until you had to blow it up. It’s lucky you also have a healthy dose of Staying Alive, what with the blowing up and all. Wait…. are we still in that arc in this fic? Whatever. You don't want to hear the spoilers, you close your ears.

“I suppose in other books you’re more of a traditional anti-hero,” he muses, “but to me,” nodding sagely, “you’ll always be magnificent. And a bastard. And a badass. Magnificent badass?

“And!” He spun the chair so enthusiastically that he did two and a half rotations before he was facing the computer screen again, “I found me too! Well, I found several for me. Apparently I’m just full of tropes. I even have my own page!

“‘Heroic Comedic Sociopath!’ ‘Why Won't You Die?’ ‘Healing Factor!’ ‘There Is No Kill Like Overkill!’ ‘Crosses the Line Twice!’ I really like that one, cause crossing the line is bad but going so far that you end up going around the planet and crossing it a second time is apparently _hilarious_. Almost as good as ‘Ludicrous Gibs.’ It's so fun making large amounts of body confetti fly all over the place! ‘Bunny Ears Assassin,’ because I’m batshit crazy but good at my job. ‘Deadpan Snarker!’ ‘No Fourth Wall!’”

Deadpool sighs happily and spins his chair back to face Cable. “I could go on, but those are some of my favorite ones, and not the unpleasant ones like ‘Body Horror’ and ‘Obfuscating Sanity.’”

Cable just stares helplessly. Deadpool stares back, then sighs. “I lost you about five paragraphs ago, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Definitely. Was there a point?”

“Eh, not really,” Deadpool says, but his shoulders slump a little bit. “I was just reading stuff because it’s boring here without anyone to kill, and sometimes I get ever so slightly, _slightly_ , I repeat, introspective about us and our Odd Friendship.”

Cable blinks, looks a bit taken aback. “Wade, I don’t think we have to qualify it as odd.”

“Yes we do! We’re labeled with it absolutely everywhere! Look!” A quick click between tabs and Cable is presented with a page splashed with ‘Odd Friendship’ in large font, no sign of himself or Wade anywhere obvious, but instead an image of a leopard enthusiastically and lovingly rubbing its head to scent mark the face of a resigned looking golden retriever.

“Am I the cat or the dog?” he manages to deadpan through the overwhelming sense of _what the fuck?_ that is settling more heavily on him the longer this conversation goes on.

This earns him a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Of course I’m the leopard. Svelte. Sexy. Deadly. Claws like katanas. _You_ , when not playing the Shell-Shocked Veteran, are a lovable puppy dog. Or maybe a loveable pit bull. I bet you even like being scratched behind the ears.”

“But why odd?” is Cable’s desperate attempt to keep the conversation a little bit back on track and away from the distracting thought of Wade running his fingers through his hair.

“It’s not odd, it’s _Odd Friendship_.” Deadpool stresses it so that Cable can practically see the capital letters hanging in the air. “Friendship between two characters who are very unlikely to be friends. The straight man and the unpredictable loose canon, the moral do-gooder and the morally damaged assassin. And it sounds a lot better than ‘Ham and Deadpan Duo’ or ‘Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders.’ Although that last one is pretty funny. I swear Cyclops and the X-Men always look like someone’s tracked in dog poop every time he sees me. Which is fun but kind of insulting too.

“Trust me, Odd Friendship is going to weird you out a lot less than Heterosexual Life-Partners, which is the other thing we get called. Frequently. Unless they just go all the way to Ho Yay aka Homoeroticism Yay.” He pauses for several seconds. Looks worried. “I just said too much.”

“So,” Cable says slowly, “you were thinking about our … ‘Odd Friendship.’"

“Yep! Exactly!” Deadpool nods precisely as vigorously as a maniac trying to hide or obfuscate something. “Just two guys who started out as enemies! Nothing in common, totally different personalities, was just pondering the obsurdity of how we got to the point of referring to each other as best buds!”

“And the heterosexual thing you said was going to ‘weird me out’?”

“Heterosexual thing? No, nope, no way, I didn’t say that! There is absolutely, definitely nothing heterosexual here! … I mean …” 

“...”

“Damn it, that wasn’t what I meant.”

“Wade, just tell me.”

Deadpool throws up his hands in defeat. “Heterosexual life-partner. Like … we seem more married than people who are actually in a relationship. Than we are with the people we are actually sleeping with. We bicker. We miss each other. We keep trying to get into each other’s storylines. We had a break-up so epic that we called it our divorce.” He is looking anywhere other than Cable when he adds. “We care.”

“So you were thinking about not just our friendship, but our … close ... friendship?”

He sighs. “Yes.”

“And the ... homoerotic way?”

Deadpool scowls and crosses his arms defensively. “Homoeroticism Yay, thank you. As in, lots of intentional, gay subtext, generally played for laughs. And you can’t pretend we aren’t _both_ guilty of flinging it back and forth. Bodyslide jokes galore. Don’t ask, don’t tell. My gravely Demi Moore voice. _Suntan lotion_. Divorce. You don’t even _know_ about some of the things yous from alternate dimensions said or did, but trust me, it ratcheted the ho yay up another notch.”

Cable feels like he’s trying to cross a field of landmines. He chooses his words carefully. “Are you angry that it exists or angry that we joke about it?”

Wade’s posture has been growing defensive, leaning forward slightly, so the angry glare Cable gets is from under hairless brows, before suddenly there is over six feet of angry, muscled, Deadpool surging up into his personal space. Wade slowly and deliberately fists his hand in the blue of Cable’s suit, which between two people as used to physical violence as they are, is loudly broadcasting _You see what I’m doing and I am giving you every opportunity to block me, so if you don’t then you’re as willing to be in this position as I am_.

“What I’m _angry_ about, Nate, is that we can’t seem to make up our minds. Or the writers can’t. Are we utterly devoted to each other? Are we backstabbing each other again? Are we making every effort to stay together, or are we going to go wander off on our separate adventures? Which is fake: when you threaten to shoot me or when you try to help me?”

“Maybe we’re just one of those couples that fight a lot.”

The weird thing is, he hadn’t meant it as a joke and he hadn’t been trying to aggravate Wade. He’d just said it because it seemed like truth. But the moment it’s out of his mouth he realizes it’s not going to help.

This time it’s fast, Wade’s other hand twisting in blue fabric. The pull of it would destabilize anyone else, but between being weighed down with techno-organics and stabilized by his gravimetric field, Cable doesn’t budge. There’s a furious glare directed up at him.

“Bad joke, Nate. Bad timing. Ahora no es el tiempo.”

“Why?”

“Because I was talking about _friendship_. Not our fucking ‘relationship.’ Shared adventures. Blowing shit up together. Scaring the governments of the world to death with all your talk of peace. We could do that _without_ all the subtext. Or at least you could.” He gives a sharp bark of laughter. “Not me. You know me, diarrhea of the mouth, inappropriate comments for all! Gay Bravado to prove my manliness is kind of what I do. Or maybe I'm just hitting on everyone. Hard to tell the difference.

“But not you.” Wade tips his head a little to one side, expression becoming more considering, calculating. “I’ve never heard you crack a joke like that with anyone else. What gives?”

Matching the deliberateness Wade had used, Cable raises his right hand, fingers grazing Wade’s chest before pressing flat. He hears and feels the hitch of breath, and his eyes flick upward from his hand to Wade’s face. The other’s expression is twitching between fear and fury, but his pupils are blown wide, pools of black. Nate fists his hand, tangles his fingers in red.

“You’re right. I don’t. Only with you.” It’s an admission that feels ripped from him, raw and vulnerable.

“Nate, if you’re fucking with me--”

“Do you _really_ want to give me an opening like that right now?”

“You’re annoying when you’re right. If you are _messing with me_ , I am going to gut you like a fish and throw your bloody corpse in the ocean for the sharks.”

The aggression is still there, in their hands, in Wade’s words, but it’s bleeding away uncomfortably quickly and being replaced by awkwardness and a hyper awareness of the three places they’re touching. Might as well make it even more uncomfortable.

Cable twists and tugs a little, swaying them closer. “I have faith you could do it if you put your mind to it,” he rumbles soft and rough.

“Are you saying I’m going to need to?”

“No.”

Wade takes a deep, shuddering breath. “We’re not supposed to do this. Be this. It’s only people like your dad and Emma, Betsy and Warren, _any_ hot male female couple, hell, even one of us and our hot female co-stars for fuck’s sake, who get physical in panel.

“Not to mention I’m 75% convinced this is just part of some devious plan to get me to admit something embarrassing so you can be righteously outraged and throw me out.”

That hurts. Mostly because Nate can see how it’s deserved. _Penchant for manipulation at the expense of others._

So he just says, “It’s not,” and yanks Wade across the last inches between them, so he only has to lean forward a tiny amount to carefully press their lips together.

It’s not the most dangerous thing he’s ever done, but it sure feels like it. Uncertainty and anticipation knot tighter in the pit of his stomach the longer Wade is perfectly still. He parts his lips and softly slides his tongue along the line of Wade’s mouth, not taking, just a question asked using flesh.

Then suddenly the stillness is gone and everything is movement in way that is supremely Wade, over the top and perfect in its physicality. There is tongue, there are hands on his neck, in his hair, on his back, and somehow Wade has climbed him and there are two very muscular legs wrapped around his waist. Nate takes the opportunity to grab the back of those thighs to help keep Wade there and pressed tight while their tongues wrestle.

It’s an interesting angle to say the least. Nate’s never before kissed anyone where he had to tilt his head _up_. It’s a nice change and underscores the reality of just who he’s kissing, whose heat and hardness is pressed against him.

Nate tips his head back just enough to break the kiss. Breathes, “Am I still a magnificent bastard?” into Wade’s space.

“Fuck the tropes,” Wade growls, twisting to nip at whatever part of Nate is most convenient, his hands gripping tighter at the gasp it draws from Nate. “Fuck the expectations. No more playing by their rules.”

Nate couldn't agree more.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Seriously, the Deadpool TV Tropes page is a fun read, because some genius(es) _wrote it in Deadpool first person_. I love you, whoever you are.~ <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SelfDemonstrating/Deadpool> _It's so fun making large amounts of body confetti fly all over the place!_ I took this line straight from that page; credit where credit is due.
> 
> And seriously, there was so much Cable & Deadpool homoerotic subtext and outright text that it got broken off into its own page. <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/HoYay/CableAndDeadpool>
> 
> 2) I'm aware many people defend the pit bull breed as unfairly maligned and unbearably affectionate. I've met many lovable pit bulls. I've also been bitten by one. I think that mix of sweet and dangerous is precisely what Wade feels about Cable. Plus their build somehow reminded me of our favorite time traveling mutant.
> 
> 3) Yo no hablo español, but I figure Wade isn’t perfect either given the “hermanos en fuego” exchange with Irene. 
> 
> 4) If I’ve missed Cable making homoerotic subtext with any other males in the Marvel universe, please let me know, …… but I really can’t think of anything off the top of my head and with the bit of looking I’ve done.
> 
> 5) I looked it up. Far as I can tell, arousal really does often equal dilated pupils. SCIENCE.
> 
> 6) Wade climbing Nate like a tree to get taller than him is 100% a tribute to rallamajoop, who was the first one I saw write it like that. Credit where credit is due.
> 
> If you’re somehow still with me, I’m withoutaconsciousorafilter on tumblr, or quakeyfic on tumblr if you want _only_ fic posts and not my spastic, random shitposting.


End file.
